


Bad as the Worst, Good as the Best

by Laura Shapiro (laurashapiro)



Series: Leaves of Grass [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Aziraphale tries a few new things, Blow Jobs, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley has a few self-esteem issues, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Dom/sub, M/M, Other, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 00:15:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19239958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurashapiro/pseuds/Laura%20Shapiro
Summary: The first new thing Aziraphale had tried was apologizing to Crowley. He’d spent the better part of six days trying to do it properly.The next new thing he tried was kissing Crowley. That had worked out far better.





	Bad as the Worst, Good as the Best

Aziraphale looked up from his book. Whitman was a bit American for him, but he liked his vigor and, lately, his rebellious spirit. The verse was stimulating in a way that was new to him. And since he and Crowley had helped to avert the Apocalypse, he had found himself willing to try a few new things. It was clear that Upstairs wasn’t watching, at least for the moment. No blessings had been ordered, certainly no miracles. There was a notable silence. Aziraphale was not prepared to assume that Everything Had Changed Forever, but he looked on this time as a bit of a holiday. And he had observed that people tried new things when they were on holiday.

The first new thing he had tried was apologizing to Crowley. He’d spent the better part of six days trying to do it properly, taking responsibility for his part in their recent misunderstandings and the hurt he had caused. He apologized for saying he didn’t like Crowley. For pushing him away. For not running away with him to Alpha Centauri. For not allowing himself to trust him.

“It was never that I didn’t trust you, Crowley,” he explained sadly, “it’s that I knew I wasn’t allowed to. I was afraid of what might happen. And that was...I was a coward. I am sorry.”

“‘Course you can’t trust me,” Crowley scoffed. “I’m a demon. Why are you apologizing? What are you sorry for? Here, have another glass of the Malbec, it’s not bad for Argentina.”

On the seventh day, after much unappreciated effort, Aziraphale rested. He ached with remorse but it seemed to go nowhere. It wasn’t as if Crowley were in a sulk -- indeed, he seemed positively cheerful most of the time, noting with pleasure the lack of interest from Below and taking the days as they came, tinkering with his car and watching television and yelling at his plants. But he would not accept Aziraphale’s attempts to do the right thing. And Aziraphale was only beginning to understand why.

The next new thing Aziraphale tried was kissing Crowley. That had worked out far better. 

Aziraphale hadn’t kissed anyone in a few decades but remembered it well enough. He had craved a taste of Crowley for far longer than that, while never allowing himself to indulge in fantasies. Even beyond the trouble it would get them into with Heaven and Hell, there was the trouble it could get him into with Crowley. He wasn’t sure which would be worse: a Crowley who loved him but had no romantic or physical interest in him whatsoever, or a Crowley who thought the whole idea was hilarious. Either was possible. Both were terrifying. But recent events had revealed that the immensity of Crowley’s adoration for him was, in its way, even more terrifying. And as seductive as, well, as a demon from Hell.

In the event, Aziraphale had not allowed himself time to think on the matter. Crowley had arisen from a nap one afternoon, disheveled and yawning, and his guileless sensuality had been too much for Aziraphale to bear. He had launched himself at Crowley and pushed him against the wall. Crowley groaned and grabbed him with both hands, opening his mouth instantly to Aziraphale’s tongue, and everything that had been difficult was suddenly easy. Between them now, wiles were frequently unthwarted and temptations were fully allowed and generally fulfilled (in Crowley’s bed, on and under the desk in the back room of the bookshop, and on one memorable occasion on an Edwardian withdrawing table in Duck Island Cottage at St. James’s Park). Aziraphale felt that the poets had spent far too much ink on desire and not nearly enough on the joy of fulfilling it, and he glowed in the splendor of Crowley’s passion.

“I love you,” Aziraphale said in one of his more ecstatic moments. This was another new thing he was trying. Crowley promptly killed the mood.

“Waste of time if you ask me,” Crowley returned with a smile, and one of his devouring kisses.

So their holiday continued. They chatted, dined, drank, pottered, fucked, and occasionally bickered. And most of the time Crowley was as he had always been: dry, sarcastic, mercurial, and maddeningly flirtatious. But Aziraphale found Crowley most tempting when he wasn’t trying to be tempting at all.

He glanced at Crowley, then slowly put the first edition and his reading glasses down on the coffee table. Beside him, and taking up much more than his fair share of the sofa, Crowley sprawled, head back against the sofa’s arm, sunglasses off, eyes closed, enormous headphones covering his ears. One bare foot lay on the floor. The other was wedged up against the cushions. His bent knee was jiggling slightly, presumably keeping time with the music Aziraphale couldn’t hear. It was the only indication Crowley was awake.

Aziraphale welcomed moments like these in their blessed rarity. Sorting his record collection, making himself a cup of tea, sleeping -- Crowley absorbed was Crowley in essence. Gentleness stole across his sharp features, and the tension in his lithe body uncoiled, leaving him open, responsive. He wasn’t flippant, he wasn’t thoughtless, he wasn’t trying for insouciance. He wasn’t pretending to be worse than he was.

Aziraphale gazed at the inviting curve of Crowley’s throat at his open shirt collar, the pulse beating there. Crowley’s heart. Gluttonous consumption of human poetry will result in certain pervasive metaphorical constructs. The organ pumping Crowley’s blood might not be the seat of his soul, but Aziraphale believed in it both as the thing keeping Crowley alive and as the thing that made him Crowley, and he loved it profoundly. Furthermore, he believed it to be of excellent quality.

But Crowley didn’t believe it, Aziraphale knew. He sighed. As an angel, he was made to guide souls in pain. As a friend, he ached to comfort someone dear to him. As a lover, he longed to return the joy he felt. Crowley would deny he was in pain and reject any comfort. But perhaps he would accept the joy. 

Aziraphale reached out, making contact with trouser leg, then shin, sliding up to knee. The knee abruptly stopped jiggling. Aziraphale looked at Crowley. Crowley was looking at him.

“What?”

“You’re lovely,” Aziraphale murmured.

Crowley lifted one of the headphones away from an ear. “What?” Late-20th century popular music pinged tinnily out around him.

Aziraphale leaned in, far enough to feel the heat rising off Crowley’s body. As an ethereal being, Aziraphale could of course control his own thermodynamics if he cared to, but most of the time he didn’t bother. Crowley always ran hotter, and Aziraphale had never got round to asking him whether it was a feature of demons, or if he did it on purpose. That radiant heat was one of the things he enjoyed most about touching Crowley. He put his hand on Crowley’s chest. “You’re perfect,” he said this time, more loudly.

“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley said, covering Aziraphale’s hand with his. Aziraphale opened his mouth, to say what he wasn’t sure, when Crowley spoke again. “What will we do? When this ends? They’re bound to put us to work again sometime.”

“And they’ll find out about us,” Aziraphale admitted.

“And they will make us pay.”

Aziraphale was shocked by his own anger, coming on in a fierce wave. “We won’t let them! We’ll -- we’ll fight them. Or, no, we’ll outwit them! Like we did last time. Together. On our side.”

Crowley smiled, a proper broad smile this time. “Now that I’ve seen you in action, I pity anybody who crosses you. You’re a right bastard when you’re angry.”

“You’re damned right I am.” Crowley continued beaming at him. “And my dear, you are magnificent.”

The headphones thumped onto the floor as Crowley seized his hand and kissed it, face tight with a look of intensity, even pain. Aziraphale, his breast abloom, moved to caress Crowley’s head with his other hand.

Crowley turned Aziraphale’s hand over and kissed the palm, then dragged his teeth across the base of his thumb. A spark ignited there, crackled up Aziraphale’s arm, and sizzled down his spine. The tips of his wings curled. Crowley must have felt it, because a smile played at the corner of his mouth and his eyes slid open again, golden and glittering. Say what you like about his constancy over the millennia, the fellow was changeable as the weather. 

Aziraphale got his knee up on the sofa and sank down into Crowley, drawing him into a kiss. He teased Crowley’s bottom lip for a moment and then sought the depth of his mouth, craving his heat, trying to inhabit him. Crowley moaned and opened to him, his hands seeking Aziraphale’s shoulders, pushing at his jacket. Going too fast, as usual. But Aziraphale was hard against his thigh and he could feel Crowley’s erection pressing at his belly. Gratifying. Crowley’s desire for him seemed to be an infinitely renewable resource. A new rush of thrumming pleasure filled him.

More kisses, becoming sloppy with greed. Aziraphale made a mental note to set aside a day or perhaps a weekend for kissing only, no other kinds of touching allowed. Just convincing Crowley to go along with it could provide entertainment for an hour or two. But Crowley was becoming urgent now, struggling between undoing Aziraphale’s waistcoat buttons and groping him through his trousers, and the only benevolent thing to do was to grant permission for more. He opened Crowley’s shirt. Crowley started to take it off but Aziraphale, a thrill of the new zinging through him, pinned his wrists.

“Crowley.” He kissed his neck. “Crowley.” He bit his nipple, and was rewarded with a gasp. “My dear, you may take me in your mouth.”

Aziraphale freed his hands. Crowley kissed him thoroughly and sank to his knees on the floor. His shirt hung free, exposing his narrow chest with its flat planes of muscle. His lips were swollen and red, his eyes aflame as he looked up at Aziraphale for all the world like a saint about to meet his martyrdom. Aziraphale sighed and threaded his hands through Crowley’s hair. “What a picture you make there.”

Aziraphale let Crowley scramble with button and zip to take out his cock, remaining fully dressed while miracleing away Crowley’s clothes. He didn’t so much mind about props and costumes when it came to sex, but he knew that Crowley did. Clothes held power for him, and nakedness implied its absence. Until this moment, Crowley had never been fully naked before him, but Aziraphale felt Crowley needed those shreds of protection stripped away. Aziraphale badly wanted to give Crowley what he needed.

Just the embrace of Crowley’s hand was enough to make him swell to bursting. Exquisite pressure, and then a gentle slide, and then a firm one. Still experimenting -- every time was an experiment, and all successful -- and Aziraphale felt his smile dissolve in the pure pleasure of it. Crowley’s tongue swirled around his cock as his hand moved with infuriating gradualness but burning intensity. Aziraphale looked down to see Crowley’s lips wrapped around him, eyes hard shut as he moved faster, taking him deeper, taking him higher. Here was Crowley in essence: absorbed, devoted, and pure. Aziraphale flooded with joy, physical pleasure nearly subsumed in the emotion. He tightened his hands to fists in Crowley’s hair and Crowley whined. A glistening trail connected Crowley’s cock to the floor, and the thought of his need brought Aziraphale to his own. Glorious sensation, a slow sweet slide into --

“Fuck! Oh, Crowley!”

He was at the edge, over it, leaping into flight, exploding with light and the holy flame of love.

Shimmers at the edge of his vision. A roughness in his throat. Aziraphale swallowed, with some difficulty, and realized he must have been shouting. His hands were still full of Crowley’s hair. He looked down. Crowley was as beautiful and as ruined as he’d ever seen him, but he aimed to do better.

“You are so good to me.”

Crowley wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “‘mnot good.”

Aziraphale tugged on Crowley’s hair in a general upward direction and Crowley joined him on the sofa. Aziraphale caught his hands and held them, caught his eyes and held them. “You are. You have been. And you will be again.”

Aziraphale saw Crowley absorb this for a moment, and then tilted his chin. “The last time you said something like that, I nearly punched you.”

“Oh, is that what you nearly did?” Aziraphale kissed him and then said “Now lie down for me.”

“Only if you come too,” Crowley said, pulling Aziraphale down on top of him.

“My dear, I just have.”

“Don’t be a -- ah!” The rest was lost as Aziraphale vanished his clothes and slid his hand around Crowley’s cock. Followed by a groan as Aziraphale pushed up Crowley’s knee and slipped two fingers inside him. Crowley’s face was crumpled in the anguish of pleasure and Aziraphale loved to see him like this, but there was something he wanted to see more.

“Open your eyes, my dear.” 

“Can’t!”

“You can. For me.” His hands worked a little quicker now, as always seeking the heat of Crowley’s body, holding him within and without. The press of his bare skin against Crowley was an eternal delight. Aziraphale wondered at his own body, capable of so much pleasure, aroused again from the sheer joy of this. “Open your eyes.”

Crowley met his gaze, with longing, with a little fear perhaps. With such need. Aziraphale bathed him with all the approval he could summon. He also added a third finger and watched with pride as Crowley kept his eyes open against the increased stimulation.

“I love you.” He held Crowley between his two hands, rocking him, with firmness and devotion. Crowley panted and clenched, struggled to yield. Aziraphale ached for him. 

“I love you. And you are glorious!” Crowley’s breath came faster, eyes strained but wide. “Do you hear me, Crowley? You are _worthy_.”

Crowley convulsed, wings unfurling spectacularly, eyes closing at last against tears as he shuddered against Aziraphale, crying out again and again. Aziraphale moved with him, hoping to make his release as transcendent as he deserved.

He thanked Heaven for the divine powers that let him tidy them up and wrap his wings and a blanket around them for warmth while holding Crowley in his arms the whole time. Crowley’s breathing had slowed and he had curled into Aziraphale but he hadn’t said a word yet. Minutes passed. Aziraphale was starting to wonder if after all he’d gone a bit too far, if after all you didn’t really know a person after six thousand years, when Crowley sat up.

“That. You.” He shook his head, pushed his hair unnecessarily off his forehead (clearly to buy time), and then quirked the corner of his lips. “That was pretty wicked of you, you know. Ordering me about like that. Holding me down.”

Aziraphale’s heart fluttered with concern, and Crowley must have seen it, because he pulled him closer and whispered in his ear. “I loved it.” Aziraphale breathed again. They resettled themselves, Aziraphale the little spoon this time. He was weighing the advantages and disadvantages of trying new things when Crowley spoke again.

“Angel, do you know, I first loved you when you gave your flaming sword away.”

Even as his heart sailed, Aziraphale was shocked. So long. Oh, Crowley. “What? Why?”

“I knew that you’d always do the kind thing, no matter how wrong it was.” Aziraphale could hear the smile in Crowley’s voice.

“Wrong! It wasn’t-- I’m not--”

“Oh, come, you were worried about it at the time! And you know you’re just a little bit wrong.” Crowley kissed his neck, nibbled his ear. Aziraphale melted. “I love you,” Crowley said. “And I love that you’re a little wicked.”

Aziraphale flamed up from head to toe, and turned in Crowley’s arms to grip him fiercely. He was wicked. He had been. And he would be again.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a quote by Walt Whitman: I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
> 
> Crowley's declaration inspired by [this Tumblr post](https://hereeatthiskitten.tumblr.com/post/185568547130/hetrez-noadventureshere221b).
> 
> Six thousand thanks to [thingswithwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/) for exemplary beta. If this story takes you to Heaven, it’s all her doing. Anything Hellish is all my fault.


End file.
